Dance of the Sugarplum Vampire
by iscariot
Summary: The eternal war between House and Cuddy takes on a whole new dynamic and that's just the patients.
1. Chapter 1

_For some reason I've decided to add another ongoing Fic to my already ongoing Fics that I never work on; obviously I'm insane – and as for those damn rabbits…_

_Anyway, something Houseian this way comes. It's not a crossover fic, but there will be crossover elements (Ha! Figure that one out people). I'm also thinking about maybe making it a House/Cuddy affair, but we'll see – Mr Romance I am not._

_For those of you who've never had the misfortune to read something of mine, I like long complex sentences, strange words, and word games; remember, perseverance is good for the soul. (BTW: This is non-beta'ed, so all mistakes are the result of my ego refusing to acknowledge that it isn't infallible)  
_

_I'd like – and this is unusual for me – to dedicate this fic to imsanehonest, whose fic 'Drenched', inspired me to write House again. In my humble (OK, not humble0 opinion, it is the pre-eminent House Fanfic out there._

_Please review if you feel so inclined._

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**History, n.:**  
_ Papa Hegel he say that all we learn from history is that we  
learn nothing from history. I know people who can't even learn from  
what happened this morning. Hegel must have been taking the long view._  
** -- Chad C. Mulligan, "The Hipcrime Vocab"**

_When I was seven years old, I was once reprimanded by my mother for an  
act of collective brutality in which I had been involved at school. A  
group of seven-year-olds had been teasing and tormenting a  
six-year-old. "It is always so," my mother said. "You do things  
together which not one of you would think of doing alone." ...  
Wherever one looks in the world of human organization, collective  
responsibility brings a lowering of moral standards. The military  
establishment is an extreme case, an organization which seems to have  
been expressly designed to make it possible for people to do things  
together which nobody in his right mind would do alone._  
**-- Freeman Dyson, "Weapons and Hope**

**

* * *

**

"Just tell me why." The statement came through the clenched teeth of the very obviously enraged, Lisa Cuddy, as she glared at her rogue diagnostician. House, for his part appeared unconcerned, regarding the Dean of Medicine's tantrum in much the same manner as ambulance chasers regarded road accidents; that is, with fascination and a hint of arousal.

"You're hot when you're angry; did you know your nipples get perky when you start ranting?"

Cuddy, used to House's continual campaigns of obfuscation and avoidance ignored the blatantly harassment-filled statement that would have seen the man dismissed, if not lynched, by any other female hospital administrator in the country and stuck to her guns.

"Again, just tell me why? I know you don't like the guy but did you really have to authorise a barium enema?"

"It seemed appropriate."

"Your job is not to determine what is appropriate, you are not one of the Furies sent to inflict divine punishment on …" she paused and reconsidered that last statement, certainly it was possible that House could qualify as some deity's idea of a divine punishment detail it was just that she wasn't entirely sure what she'd done to deserve such on her staff; maybe if she'd been nicer to small children and animals when she was younger…

"…Earth to Cuddy, hello? Cuddy?"

"…What? Oh…House…Sorry, for one brief, merciful moment I'm managed to forget about your existence."

House appeared slightly wounded by this statement for despite his near-perpetual misanthropy he still used his gift as a constant irritant to all and sundry to justify his existence. Intimation to the effect that his presence had been banished from the consciousness of Primary Target Cuddy was a struck a disheartening blow to his worldview.

"Did you want me to answer your question?"

Cuddy, resigned herself to yet another improbable explanation for the man's wholly inappropriate conduct, decided that her day was going to be long and arduous enough without having to deal with a – probable - piece of fantasy vivid enough to challenge Dali at his most delusional. "You know what, House? I don't want to know. In fact, I don't actually care. However, to reinforce with you that I do take your actions somewhat seriously I am adding an additional five hours of clinic time to your roster."

"You can't do that."

"Watch me."

"But that's not fair."

"What's fair got to do with it?"

"Because…but…bu… because it does."

"…And if you don't do the clinic hours I'll make sure the TV in your office is removed…"

"That's theft."

"It's on hospital property."

"But it's my TV…"

"Alright then, I'll have the hospital electrician come in and disconnect power to your office."

"Then how will I do my job?"

Checkmate, thought Cuddy, with a degree of satisfaction wholly inappropriate to her position. "Well let's see. Cameron answers your correspondence, Foreman does your administration and Chase runs around and gets everything else done. You apparently use your computer solely for games and you perform the majority of your diagnoses on your white board which, I might add, is un-powered…"

House, knowing he'd been completely outmanoeuvred, surrendered. "…Fine, I'll do the clinic hours."

"…and…"

"I won't have that bastard given another enema."

"House," growled Cuddy warningly, "Mr Khan is a patient, not a bastard."

"Nope. He's definitely a bastard, his records don't mention a family history, says he's an orphan."

Cuddy shrugged, better to let the man have this small victory otherwise he'd be insufferable for the rest of the week. "Fine then, Mr Khan's hereditary origins are indeterminate. However, irrespective of whether or not said genetic donors were known to him, there will be no more enemas; clear?"

"Clear," mumbled the doctor much in the manner of a chastised schoolboy, "Can I go now?"

"Not just yet," Cuddy's eyes gleamed with an unholy light and House, ever wary of consequences, prepared to make an escape; however, House being House, he couldn't leave without sating his eternal need to get in the last word, one final riposte. "You know Cuddy, you get all flushed when you're angry; I think that authority thing's turning you on."

"…And speaking of that authority thing, I have a new case for you."

"You can't do that," exclaimed House, "who the hell do you think you are, my boss…or… something?" The sentence tailed off somewhat weakly, for not even House at his most contrary could deny that when it came to all things administrative, Cuddy was indeed his superior in every sense of the word. While Cuddy was more than prepared to concede that yes, House was a better doctor than her, there was a lot to be said for reminding him – on occasion – that the world did not revolve around him and his Greg-o-centric view of the universe.

"Look, I'm very busy. I have things to do, people to see and deals to be made."

The Dean of Medicine arched a finely manicured eyebrow in her rogue colleague's direction "Has no one ever told you that the people on General Hospital aren't real, that inside the little magic box those things you see aren't really happening."

"How cruelly your jibes wound, your wit is a sharp an cutting as a scalpel; or not, perchance, I think a scalpel by any other name would resemble a brick."

"Yes, House, how very poor man's Shakespeare of you."

House shrugged, "Chase and Cameron have been at a conference the past week; no one else stays around long enough for me to get in any practise; except Steve, of course, but eventually he gets fed up and goes to run in his wheel."

"You consider that a surprise?"

"No, but it is a sad commentary on people's ability to engage in the noble art of verbal combat."

"Either that, or an exemplar of the evolutionary process at work. Face it, House, you're like an old, bad-tempered crocodile that hangs out at the same waterhole year-around, eventually even the dumbest of animals gets the idea and stays away."

"So how do you explain Wilson?" noted House.

Ignoring the diagnostician's jibe that his best friend was no better than a dumb animal, Cuddy shrugged, "I don't know, maybe misery loves company; more likely, all his troubles seem manifestly manageable in comparison to the burden you bear."

"…And what burden would that be…"

"Why the chip on your shoulder of course," responded Cuddy, smiling a sweet – and completely false – smile, "now, about this case."

"I told you, I'm not interested."

"And yet somehow I can't bring myself to care. Now, the patient presents with no pulse, no heartbeat and has a temperature of 5.5 degrees."

House gazed speculatively at the woman trying to determine if he was being manipulated into being the butt of some sort of joke. "I think you need to go back to medical school, Cuddy, the operative term for the condition you've described is 'corpse', not 'patient'."

'Gotcha', she thought, "Well, in that case, I'm sure you'll have no problem explaining to the woman that she is in fact, not sick, but dead."

Rising from her desk, Cuddy, determinedly marched towards her target brandishing a sheaf of official looking papers. House, who from long experience of suffering the consequences when his antagonising of his colleagues went just a little bit too far, recognised the malicious glint in her eye and gave momentary thought to making a break for it at full hobble, but knew that, even perched on her ridiculously high heels, the buxom administrator would chase him down with the ease of a cheetah hunting a comatose tree sloth; thus he sighed, girded his loins in preparation for the Damocletian sword that held his fate to descend with brutal efficiency.

"What do you mean by 'explain'?" House asked, suspiciously.

Cuddy sighed, "An explanation," she began assuming a clipped didactic tone, as if talking to a particularly slow five year old, "is when you talk to a person in order to provide information pertinent as to why you hold a particular position relative to a topic being discussed or, where you provide information pertaining to said topic in order to render the topic in greater clarity. It is not," she continued "as you appear to believe, where you insult the intelligence of anyone who disagrees with anything that comes out of your mouth."

Cuddy turned on her heel and walked back to her desk as House taking time to admire the seductive sway of her taut buttocks encased as they were in a exceedingly tight – and even more exceedingly flattering – business skirt; "…And House, stop checking out my butt."

"You didn't seem to mind when I was giving you those hormone injections."

"Out!" House, smirked at the women, and wandered off deciding that getting ordered out of Cuddy's office, yet again, was reason enough to consider their latest battle a draw – despite the fact that he still held the unwanted patient file in his hands.

As she watched House depart, Cuddy let out an exasperated sigh; dealing with the man was hard work. The biggest problem wasn't his arrogance, although, to the uninitiated, that would have been the easiest target, for, unfortunately or not, Doctor Gregory House was indeed as good as he thought he was. No, the problem with House was that he didn't care; about, work, authority, others or – perhaps most tragically of all – himself. Again, Cuddy sighed, this time in resignation, she knew there was no point in disciplining House because in the grand scheme of things the punishment meant absolutely nothing to him.

Another thing House didn't appear to care about was paperwork, an attribute he had apparently infected Chase with, and he was, apparently, well on the way to corrupting the soul of Eric Foreman; or at least just as soon as the older man was able to override the black doctor's internal reflex; that is, for acting in a manner considered appropriate to being a doctor, be it suit, tie and lab coat or fulfilling one's administrative obligations.

Cuddy gave up a silent prayer of thanks for Allison Cameron's unwavering diligence, industry and preparedness to do the donkey work although there were also signs that House's unremitting assault on the younger woman's ethical sensibilities and soft skills was weakening her attachment to the more 'romanticised' elements of her existence. Now, of a certainty, Cuddy was prepared to admit that a degree of detachment, which allowed a measure of surcease from the continual emotional and psychic assault, was a good thing, she wasn't sure, however, that it should be taken to the extremes that House took it. There was detachment and then there was emotional obliviousness…

…Even if was nothing more than a well-constructed sham for nothing had displayed House's inherent humanity – or his loathing of his humanity - more than his complete desolation at Stacy's violation of his self when she had authorised the surgery on his leg. In Cuddy's experience no one could shut down so completely on an emotional level and then claim complete indifference to the human condition; it was, she mused, much like people who claimed to love and not hate; you couldn't have one without the other and House, to segue into Shakespearean mode, protested far too much for his misanthropy to be taken seriously.

Nevertheless, he was still an insensitive bastard, an arrogant son-of-a-bitch and a pathological liar and cynic but he wasn't as far gone as he liked to pretend or, indeed, tried to convince people he was. Of course there were those who would always view the man in shades of black and white or, more accurately, black and black for, irrespective of the facts (or truth, or reality for that matter), it was rumoured that the Head Nurse Brenda, had had her fireman boyfriend transfer House's image to all the mannequins the local department used in their drills, apparently, on her days off, she'd go down to the station and cheer on the fire.

She could have sold tickets, Cuddy thought.

Perhaps, in a free moment, she'd approach the woman and inquire whether it was possible to stage an annual fundraiser based on the concept, she was fairly certain she would be able to attract large numbers of well-heeled donors to a ritual burning of House-in-effigy; most of the board, for example.

Cuddy smiled at the mental picture of House going up in flames before she returned her attention to the paperwork on her desk: bills, accounts, transplant requests, responses from donors, something suspicious from a lawyer (all things from lawyers were, by definition suspicious), lab results, performance appraisals – from all the departmental heads with the exception of diagnostics, no surprise there, thought Cuddy, and a letter in a childish hand wishing Aunty Lisa a happy birthday: at least somebody loves me, she thought.

Pushing the majority of the material to one side, with the exception of her niece's card, which she propped against her desk lamp, Cuddy turned her attention to the suspicious lawyer-y thing. 'Please don't let it be a lawsuit, please don't let it be a lawsuit, please don't let it be a lawsuit' she incanted three times in a long-established ritual before she ripped open the envelope. Withdrawing the contents from the tattered receptacle, she took a moment to briefly scan the contents.

"Well I'll be damned…"


	2. Laywers and Corpses

_Finally, I get around to doing some more writing. Certainly, writer's block has played a part, however, admittedly, so has Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction: Many demons were killed in the writing of this chapter._

_I guess it doesn't help that I'm also trying to publish a newsletter for another interest and also work on some other stories…I'm also expected to have a life._

_I'm still unsure where to take this story, at the moment it's wavering between outright farce and a psychological treatise…hell, there might even be some doctorin' turning up at some point._

_I have to admit though, I do enjoy writing House though…you can show me you enjoy reading House by showering me in reviews…but only if you really want to (and a sincere thanks to those who reviewed the first chapter)._

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_Technological progress has merely provided us with more efficient means  
for going backwards._  
**-- Aldous Huxley**

_Blood is thicker than water, and much tastier_

**Harvard Law:**  
_Under the most rigorously controlled conditions of pressure,  
temperature, volume, humidity, and other variables, the organism will  
do as it damn well pleases._

_Hatred, n.:_  
_A sentiment appropriate to the occasion of another's  
superiority._  
**-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"**

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------**  
**

**_From the Desk of Jeremiah Doom  
Partner (Snr)  
Doom, Petit-Morte & Avariss  
Barristers and Solicitors._**

_To: Dr Lisa Cuddy  
__Dean of Medicine  
Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital_

06 Jun 2006

Doctor Cuddy.

I have, on behalf of my firm, been engaged by my client to contact you with regards to a matter of great import.

My client, a person of great personal worth and renown, but who, at this time, wishes to remain nameless, currently finds themselves in a position where a highly valued and cherished member of their of their family has become gravely ill. From the communications entrusted to me by my client I am – at this time – able to divulge that the hopes and indeed chances, if the condition continues to progress at its present rate, for my client's family member's continued well being is minimal; I should also add that despite multiple consultations with numerous highly-qualified professionals, at a variety of establishments, no firm – or tentative- diagnosis has been achieved; that is to say, currently the case has confounded one and all

Thus, we come to the crux of this particular communication, that is, why I, on behalf of my client, am contacting yourself, in your capacity of Dean of Medicine of your medical establishment.

When initial diagnoses and prognoses of my client's family member appeared so determinedly grim, my client engaged the law firm of Doom, Petit-Morte and Avariss to identify and then persuade, the best medical practitioners in the field to work on the case; as was stated above, this achieved nothing. Thereafter, the question became one notsomuch one of who is the best doctor, for there are many fine doctors, but who, in the wider medical fraternity, was the best problem solver? I am reliably informed this particular specialisation is termed, Diagnostics.

Almost universally, the responses given amounted to one answer: Dr Gregory House. Perhaps what is most revealing in this acquiring such a uniform response was the almost equal level of disdain in which the man is held. Dr House, I am led to believe, is arrogant, indifferent, rude, insensitive and obstinate; I could go on, but will refrain from doing so. Irrespective of these descriptions, it is also agreed that Dr House is, not only, the best but that his sheer unconventionality and preparedness to ignore accepted doctrine and precedent may be the last, best hope for my client's family member. To that end, my client, after being fully briefed on all relevant factors (including, but not limited to Doctor House's foibles and peculiarities), wishes to engage Dr House's services.

My client recognises that depriving a teaching hospital of a medical practitioner of Dr House's stature would be a difficult burden to overcome and therefore, they are prepared to compensate the hospital with a grant to the effect of Twenty Million dollars.

I await your immediate response.

Yours sincerely

Jeremiah Doom

Partner (Snr)  
Doom, Petit-Morte and Avariss

----------------------------------

Cuddy took a moment to re-read the pertinent information held within the letter. She then, as with all matters that mentioned House by name, held the paper up to the light to make sure that the paper wasn't a clever fake; she then paged her assistant; momentarily, a young, bookish man appeared in her doorway.

"Lucian."

"Yes Doctor Cuddy?"

"Find me everything you can on a firm of Barristers and Solicitors by name of Doom, Petit-Morte and Avariss, and then page Doctor House to come to my office immediately."

When the young man didn't move, Cuddy gifted him with the type of measuring glance designed to melt unresponsive subordinates on the spot; "Well…?" The word hung in the air above the man's head with the unambiguous threat of a poorly maintained guillotine.

Lucien shrugged "I don't need to do any research to tell you about Doom, Petit-Morte and Avariss…"

…At Cuddy's silent prompt to continue he launched into a spectacularly lurid recitation primarily composed of tabloid trash, innuendo and scurrilous rumour; in fact, the information was so debased as to be wholly unlikely to be fiction.

"So what you're telling me is that they're a bunch of criminals."

"No," corrected Lucien, "that would be far too simplistic an analysis. It would be more correct to suggest that they are so good at what they do that they can't be wholly legitimate. Of course, nothing to the contrary has ever been proven and anyone who has suggested anything resembling such in a public forum is usually never heard from again."

"Killed!" exclaimed Cuddy, determined that he hospital would have nothing to do with such an organisation.

"No. Bankrupted, publicly shamed and socially excommunicated; they don't need to kill you. In short, you don't cross Doom, Petit-Morte and Avariss. The other side of the coin is that they are the best of the best and that while their charge out rate is ridiculously high they get results; rumour has it that they have a money-back guarantee irrespective of the cost to them…"

"…And have they ever had to follow through on this alleged policy?" asked Cuddy curiously.

Lucien shrugged, "I don't know; as I said, it's a rumour. What I can confirm though, is that if you're holding a piece of paper with their letterhead on it, it's legitimate; no one would dare to impersonate them."

"Can you tell me anything about this," she glanced for a second at the paper to refresh her memory, "Jeremiah Doom?"

Lucian shuddered delicately, his fine-boned frame palpably demonstrating his disquiet. "The rumour mill would have it that Jeremiah Doom is several hundred years old at least and that he bears the appearance of a desiccated corpse," he smiled deprecatingly, "Mind you, the rumour mill would also have it that Doom commands an army of undead minions who seek to fulfil his every whim and that the unrivalled reach of his firm is due to their influence; billable hours matter nothing to those that don't sleep."

Cuddy tried not to scoff too openly, she was experienced enough in the ways of the world to know that while the idea of an undead workforce was pabulum there was probably some small measure of truth upon which the rumours were based. "Can I assume you're not going to confirm the veracity of these rumours?"

Lucien nodded vigorously. "Absolutely. Not, of course" he hastened to add, "that I believe in such things. What I can confirm is that Doom is almost never seen in person, at least not in court, this has led to rumours as to his continued existence – or lack of it; he usually has a junior fulfil his court functions."

"Never?"

"The last, rumoured appearance of the man was in relation to an aspect of that Shakespeare Killer serial case in Las Vegas several years ago; but I can't confirm that either. What I can confirm – or at least from what I have gathered from court reports -is that Doom's grasp of the law is encyclopaedic and that he knows more about legal precedent than any man…errr…alive." Lucien suddenly grinned, "A wit suggested that old man Doom probably wrote the Ten Commandments and everything else is simply revision. Anyway," he continued, "you can be pretty certain that what you have there is legitimate."

"Okay, thanks" noted Cuddy absentmindedly "Go and page House would you? Oh, and Lucien, thanks."

--------------------------------

House stomped his way down the corridor office towards the clinic. He was not happy. Strangely enough – or not so strangely if you understood the psychological profile of the man – he was more upset at being verbally bettered by the female administrator than he was being sent on a wild goose chase to examine a corpse. He had to admit, however, be it ever so grudgingly, that if Cuddy had indeed installed a corpse in the examination room with the intent of setting him up then she had not only gone to a lot of effort but had also knowingly bypassed numerous health and safety regulations, as well as displaying a callousness towards the dead, that was wholly out of character.

Cuddy was many things, he thought lasciviously as he mentally conjured an image of her firm, yet ample, bust, but one thing she was not was insensitive to others, nor would she disregard her professional duty, and the dictates of protocol, solely for the pleasure of making House look stupid. He paused to reconsider that last point and had to concede that Cuddy might bend the rules to put House in his place but certainly not break them, so maybe, he conceded, she wasn't 'setting him up'_ per se_, but of a certainty, whatever was going on wasn't entirely cochre.

As he painfully progressed towards his destination he held out for the vain hope that one of his minions would cross his path and he could therefore, in good mentoring conscience, assign the case to them. Admittedly, his chances of encountering one of his faithful lackeys was minimal insofar as Cameron and Chase had the day off having only recently returned from their conference and Chase, even if he had been there, had, of late, somehow acquired a spine and concomitantly developed an annoying tendency to ignore his barbs. The last time House had had a go at the Australian, Chase had muttered something about House needing to get the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune sharpened as he was losing his touch.

The diagnostician had been too nonplussed to reply although later, he had considered sending a sharply worded memo to the orthopaedic section telling them to stay away from his interns; he then proceeded to make Cameron's life miserable for the rest of the day; he saw no reason why he should remain frustrated and unfulfilled.

Admittedly, Foreman was still around but the black doctor was no fun to dragoon as, since his near-death experience, he had taken to assuming any additional tasks assigned to him with an air of saintly patience that really got on House's nerves. What made it worse for House was he was aware that Foreman was aware that his attitude annoyed the hell out of his superior and therefore he did all he could to rub it in. Worse still for House, was that while Foreman retained a measure of the self-serving egotist that previously comprised such a large part of his personality he had somehow turned it into some sort of sarcasm shield that House was, as yet, unable to penetrate; Foreman might continue to be an arrogant prick, but he was now an arrogant prick at peace with himself, moving from a state of thinking he was better than everyone and endeavouring to prove it through snide innuendo and malicious, politically motivated backstabbing to a point where he knew he was good but not caring what anyone happened to think about it. Perhaps the biggest development to come from his illness was that he had stopped competing with the other interns: he could no longer see the point. He knew that, as good as he was, that he'd never be the genius that Chase was – although he was grateful that he also lacked the Australian's erratic and emotionally diffident nature. He also knew that he'd never have the compassion and empathy that marked Cameron out as a doctor who would heal the soul as much as the body. What he had come to understand was that the existence of these difference was complimentary to his abilities and not a challenge; this was, of course, immensely frustrating for House who based his developmental processes on generating conflict and then using the fallout to push the point he was making – or trying to make - home.

'Everybody lies' may have been House's favoured dictum but few people understood what he really meant. Certainly, there was an element of misanthropy in the statement, a belief that people consciously relied on a series of untruths and hidden secrets to survive, however, there was also the implicit concept that the way people interpreted and interacted with the environment was a lie, albeit an unconscious one and one governed by contemporary mores and structures of social appropriateness; both things House had no time for. House was prepared to admit that his worldview in such matters was – possibly – unnecessarily black and white, but then a spade was a spade and a not a flat-bladed digging implement, however much the two tools appeared to have in common.

Finally, the crippled doctor arrived at the room designated by Cuddy. Momentarily, House paused, as he briefly debated whether or not it would simply be easier is he did his patented gimp version of 'running away', eventually, he shrugged and turned the handle on the door to enter the room.

"'Ello love, are you the doctor?" The voice that greeted him was cockney and somewhat fey and ethereal. The person, to whom the voice belonged, was also somewhat ethereal looking – actually, the person in question looked like they'd escaped from a Kate Bush convention, but that was beside the point - being slim, extremely pale with masses of dark hair framing her face.

"No, I'm the cleaner," retorted House, his residual aggravation at Cuddy, combined with his relief that he didn't have to deal with a real, live corpse making his tone sharper than he intended.

"Don't need no cleaner, I 'ad a bath last night."

"I'm very happy for you, after all cleanliness is next to godliness."

The women managed to somehow look both amused and horrified, "Don't think I'm too close to godliness," she giggled "at least not this week. The stars didn't say nuthin' 'bout no godliness."

Great, thought House, she might not be a corpse, but she's brain-dead. "So what appears to be the problem?"

"I'm all cold and shivery, I am, like gooses is paradin' over my grave; I don't like gooses, nasty hissy birds all with their long necks and nasty beaks…"

House rapidly moved to interrupt what promised to be a largely incoherent monologue, the last thing he wanted was to be trapped in a room with a lunatic; perhaps, he thought, this was Cuddy's idea of an object lesson. He made a note to check the transfer papers from the psych ward to see if one of the inmates was roaming around on Cuddy's recognizance. "Yes, well, that's very interesting," he noted, returning his attention to the patient, "let's examine the symptoms you've described, not including," he hastened to forestall an interruption, "any and all geese with whom you might have come into contact."

With a solicitude that belied his brusque manner, House placed a gentle hand across the woman's brow and, surprised at the clamminess of the woman's skin to his touch, moved to take her hands in his own he noted that they, like her forehead, were clammy, clammy to extent where an association could indeed be made with the dead.

"If you'd hold still, I'll take your temperature." Moving to one of the supply drawers, located immediately behind the examination table, he removed an electronic thermometer and placed a sterile cap over the end. Inserting the tip of the device into the patient's ear he waited a moment - in silence, as he was never prone to small talk even in the name of mindless reassurance - before checking the reading. Casually, he glanced at the gauge expecting a slightly elevated reading indicative of the body's response, an attempt to cool itself in the face of a fever; what he got was something entirely different.

"Damn thing must be broken" he muttered.

"What was that luv?" inquired his patient, a look of serene indifference guising her features.

"I said that this thermometer must be broken, it's telling me that your temperature is just above ambient room temperature; if you'll excuse me for a moment I'll find another one and we'll try again." Assuring himself that there wasn't another thermometer in the examination room, House stalked – in a fashion only a crippled man could – from the examination room in search of a working thermometer of some description. As he approached the main nurses desk there was a rapid scramble – reminiscent of a evacuation – to be somewhere else as all and sundry took in the doctor's thunderous expression and bolted; only Brenda, the nurse with iron underwear, stood her ground.

"Doctor House, what can I do for you?"

"I need a thermometer."

"I believe all the examination rooms are stocked with thermometers," she replied with a pinch of professionalism and bucket load of 'all-doctors-are-idiots' sarcasm.

"Let me re-phrase that for your stunted intellect and limited abilities, I want a thermometer that works."

"All the thermometers are regularly checked, and where necessary, serviced; are you sure you used it correctly?"

"Why don't I try it out on you and we'll see if I know what I'm doing and if you're not satisfied with that we'll see if I can borrow a crash cart. Anyhow, loathe as I am to humour an idiot, I'll answer your question; 'how do I know the thermometer isn't working?' There's a patient in there," he gestured towards the examination room from where he'd emerged, his voice rising as his antagonism at dealing with yet another of the seemingly endless number of petty functionaries placed on the planet for the sole purpose of making his life miserable began to take over "whose temperature is reading as something slightly above ambient room temperature. Now, how do I know that there's a problem with the thermometer and not the patient? Normally, a patient with a room temperature temperature is located in the morgue; as I was having a conversation with this one we can safely assume that she isn't dead. Now, kindly stop asking stupid questions and go drown yourself in a bedpan, but first, find me a working thermometer."

Several moments later, a triumphant House, thermometer clutched triumphantly in his hand, re-entered the examination room only to find his patient gone, there was, however, a note.

Sorry Luv,

The stars told Miss Edith that I had to go, things to do, people to drain.

D.

Later, it was with a thermometer in one hand and the note in the other that Cuddy's assistant found House, "Doctor House, Docotr Cuddy asks that you come to her office immediately…


	3. Clinicus Interuptus

_I was almost at the point of placing 'Lost Muse' posters on every lamppost within a hundred-kilometre radius of my House. I've had no urge to write and when I have been able to summon a smudge of enthusiasm I've had no inspiration. Apathy sucks._

_Nevertheless, I have finally managed to get this chapter done. I have to admit that, despite the troubles and delays, I quite like this bit…probably because I took the language out and bent it into all sorts of interesting shapes._

_Some of the prose is (I warn you) hideously purple…but at least it's fun._

_I quickly beta-ed this myself so any mistakes are the fault of the nearest person I can blame._

_As always, thanks to you, gentle reader, for your interest and support, if you should feel so inclined leave a review (or a torrent of abuse) it's always nice to be loved (loathed?)_

* * *

_"It was pleasant to me to get a letter from you the other day. Perhaps  
I should have found it pleasanter if I had been able to decipher it. I  
don't think that I mastered anything beyond the date (which I knew) and  
the signature (which I guessed at). There's a singular and a perpetual  
charm in a letter of yours; it never grows old, it never loses its  
novelty ... Other letters are read and thrown away and forgotten, but  
yours are kept forever -- unread. One of them will last a reasonable  
man a lifetime."  
**-- Thomas Aldrich**_

* * *

For possibly the first time in recorded history, House was loath to leave the confines of the clinic; it was a unusual sensation and at any other time House would have sent himself home with an accompanying prescription involving the finest single malt that money could buy; this time, however, he simply wrote it off as an unknown sensation brought on by the existence of a genuine intellectual puzzle. Now, having been presented with a puzzle that challenged the very foundations of his medical worldview, he actually wanted to stay and play doctor – insofar as 'playing doctor' by insulting the hapless and mentally incompetent stirred his creative juices; it also upset the nursing staff, but that was an incidental bonus.

And now, who – or perhaps what - should appear, but a minion. It wasn't even one of his own minions but an administrative minion, which, to House's way of thinking, barely raised the poor unfortunate to somewhere above a flatworm on the evolutionary scale. That the minion belonged to Cuddy raised its worthiness of consideration (somewhat) in House's estimation, insofar as the head administrative she-devil was known to be a harsh taskmistress…harsh task-dominatrix? House paused to consider the girls tightly constrained in a leather corset and felt his mind veer off into a land that had little to do with being a doctor and even less to do with reality.

"So what does the she-devil, sorry," he absent-mindedly corrected himself as he reluctantly withdrew from his reverie, "does Doctor Cuddy, want…this time," he added as a long-suffering afterthought.

Lucien, having in his short administrative career been subjected to the entire gamut of human personalities (and then some not so human, he thought, as he remembered an extremely brief tenure working for a 'collections agency'), barely raised an eyebrow at the doctor's thinly veiled comments.

"Doctor Cuddy, did not see fit to take me into her confidence in this instance," which was of course a blatant lie, but what House didn't know wouldn't kill him (too severely), "however, she did stress to me that your immediate attendance was of the utmost importance and that I was not only to find, and advise, you of said circumstance, but that I was to also stay with you until such time as I was assured of your understanding and compliance with the instructions. Further, Doctor Cuddy also noted that if I felt that you were displaying even the slightest degree of intransigence I was to stay with you until such time as you acceded to her request, even unto following you home."

Of course, Lucien had made the last part up out of whole cloth, but much like House, he knew and understood the game and took great pleasure in pushing it to its limits. For his part, House knew the human protozoa was lying through his teeth and if he had the time he'd ensure that in any future interactions with the failed genetic experiment that was Cuddy's assistant would result with said creature lying through his dentures; however, he too knew how the game was played and as such his next move was to accede to the 'request' and take his frustrations out on its point of genesis.

House paused to consider the options before him and, while feeling that trapping the minion under the front wheels of his car as he sped – with cavalier abandon - from the hospital parking garage held some measure of potential entertainment and, better yet, a degree of release from his almost constant anomie, it wasn't, in the grand scheme of things, worth the cost of having the car detailed twice in the same month, therefore, he decided to declare a _pro forma_ acceptance of the directive at least until such time as he could arranging for the annoying speck to vanish down a lift shaft .

"Very well, minion, let us depart with all due haste lest we keep the good doctor waiting." Never let it be said that there was never a time and place for sarcasm.

Lucien wondered to himself, as he followed House out of the examination room, whether Doctor Cuddy would settle for the man being delivered in a box or, maybe, a leak-proof bag (if only he could persuade the irascible malcontent to accidentally step into the industrial mincer that was housed in the hospital's kitchen). On consideration, however, he didn't imagine that Doctor Cuddy would find much use for a bag of minced House; especially considering how her cat was particularly fussy. Thus Lucien settled for quiet daydreams of feeding the man into a pool of hungry piranha or better yet throwing the man off a cliff and catching him with a farm implement of some description, possibly a pitchfork.

House, for his part, while far from thrilled at being dragged away from his intellectual conundrum was prepared to – privately - admit that the reason for the summons must be pretty momentous, insofar as he would have attested to the likelihood of the seven plagues of Egypt appearing in the women's third floor bathroom before Lisa Cuddy recalled him from clinic duty, a clinic duty that she had manoeuvred him into in the first place. Thus, House was torn. While admitting to a degree of fury at being pulled from something supremely interesting (admittedly, House also found monster trucks, yoyos and the measurements of porn-stars interesting, so the point was, at heart completely relative, highly subjective, and probably moot), he was genuinely curious as to the reasons for his summonsing. In the wider scheme of things he was probably more annoyed that she had sent a scrofulous lackey to ride herd on him: mild insofar as he considered the man to be beneath his notice and therefore not worthy of having the degree of energy expended on him necessary for House to adequately to express his opinion of the situation.

Determining that the lackey wasn't worth the oxygen required to make conversation, House waged war with himself.

One of the problems with arguing with yourself from several viewpoints is that it tends to make one's mind the mental equivalent of a conference for multiple personality disorder where the disparate personalities had not only organised the conference but also comprised both guest speakers and audience. If ever the late, unlamented minion of Satan, that was Vogler, had ever needed a genuine reason to remove House – one that didn't involve unremitting sociopathic hatred – then an ability to tune in on House's internal monologue would have presented a more than adequate _prima facie_ case for the man's immediate removal, on psychiatric grounds, to an institution of Vogler's choosing; probably somewhere underground, for instance the bottom of an active volcano.

Fortunately, although only through the wonders of modern technology, we are able to eavesdrop on the internal monologue of Doctor Gregory House. It should be noted that sometimes it is best left to one's imagination to determine what may or may not be passing through a person's mind; in the case of one, Gregory House, M.D., (a person whose thought processes are, at times, so base and fecund as to resemble a medieval cess-pit) that perusing said thought stream could potentially give one – if one were a nun or a professional virgin – a fit of the vapours. Of a certainty, children should indubitably not be exposed to the thoughts of House…nor, for that matter, should most adults: psychiatrists, however, especially those pursuing case studies for a potential doctoral – or some other form of advanced educational – dissertation should pay close attention.

_'She had no pulse**…**Well, okay, I didn't actually check that she had a pulse as she was gone by the time I finished berating that psychopathic bitch of a head nurse**…**And no body temperature. Actually**…**that's not strictly accurate, she did have a body temperature insofar as room temperature is indeed a temperature but the only occasion that room temperature and body temperature should be approaching something resembling commonality is when the room is a sauna, not a plunge pool in darkest Reykjavik**…**Holy shit would you look at the tits on that nurse,**…**Where was I? No tits, no, no temperature; nothing directly observable from an epidemiological perspective either. Sure, she was pale and**…**How the hell did she get into her uniform? As Mr Scott proclaimed, "ye cannae change the laws of physics" and I remember something about the conservation of mass from high school physics, maybe she's hiding a black hole in there somewhere**… **Sure, she was pale, but so was that idiot goth we had in here the other week, thought they were a vampire. Idiot, what sort of vampire faints at the sight of blood?** …** Hold on, she's bending over, short of using a crane she'll never get back up a**…**okay, colour me wrong, must be wearing spring-loaded underwear or something, I'll ask Wilson, Wilson will know; Wilson will probably be able to give me measurements**…**actually, Wilson will probably be able to give me a detailed description with diagrams…'_

He paused in his monologue to watch the gentle sway of the nurse's ample bosom as it responded to the tide, the gravitational effect of the moon and Newton's Third Law of Motion as each stilettoed heel struck the floor with a staccato cadence. It was almost hypnotic…

…As the nurse moved out of sight (range?), but before House could return to his intended ruminations, he was interrupted by a high-pitched whining reminiscent of a mosquito in heat.

"…House? Doctor House?"

House reluctantly resisted the urge to smite Cuddy's minion inasmuch as he knew the administrator was fond of it claiming that it was one of the more capable members of its species that she had encountered. House was of the opinion that if she was so fond of it, she should have it stuffed and mounted above her desk. Abruptly, House's mind started to segue towards the subject of mounting Cuddy…no… things on, sorry over, Cuddy's desk before he manged to pull his wandering imagination back into line. Admittedly, when talking about the minion, Cuddy had used an alien tongue consisting of words such as 'competence' and 'professionalism' but House was able to generally get the gist of what she was saying. Despite his reluctant understanding it didn't stop him sighing resignedly at Cuddy's usurpation of the natural order, that is, the Darwinian imperative that the strong shall survive by ruthlessly grinding those less evolved beneath their bootheel, thus House settled for a glare and an irascible curse involving the man's parents, and a sea cucumber.

Lucien rolled his eyes. "Very interesting Doctor House, physically impossible, but nonetheless interesting, albeit in an anally-fixated way. Now, if you would care to pay attention, Doctor Cuddy has a asked me to briefly outline to you the reasons for her summons."

"But you told me you knew nothing about it."

"I lied," Lucien replied blandly, "I do that a lot when there's a dearth of suitable entertainment available. Now, Doctor Cuddy has asked me to inform you that she has received a letter from a potentially wealthy benefactor who has offered the hospital a great deal of money… "

"…I'm hearing an 'IF' with my name on it…"

"How astute," murmured the assistant, "indeed," he continued, "the proviso attached to the offer constitutes the direct engagement of your services for a time that is, as yet, to be determined."

House was not impressed, if there was one thing guaranteed to anger the man it was for him to be treated as nothing more than a commodity "You make the assumption that I'll agree to this proposal."

"And you make the assumption that you actually have a choice. "Considering your behaviour in the Vogler affair, I would suggest to you that helping to recoup some of the one-hundred million dollars you cost the hospital would only be fair..."

"…And who are you to make such a point?"

"Does it matter? You can guarantee that Doctor Cuddy will say the exact same thing and she does hold the moral high ground in this instance."

House grimaced, for while morality and its alleged ability to manipulate events and actions seldom held any sway over either his decisions or actions he was, as much as it galled him to admit it, indebted to Cuddy for her intercession with the late unlamented bureaucratic behemoth that was Edward Vogler.

Payback was a bitch.


	4. Cap yo' ass

_Warning 1: This has not been beta-ed: I blame everyone other than myself. Please advise me if there's anything that's horrendously glaring…_

_Warning 2: I have been a bit distracted as of late. I started another Firefly fic that I was immensely fond of and which, the majority of people, ignored. The only thing preventing me from going on a murderous rampage is that it's Christmas and I can't be bothered._

_Right, actual intro: Once again we resume our Houseian adventures with more House/Cuddy verbiage. I've played this chapter for innuendo value so if you're under sixteen please find a responsible adult to put their hand over your eyes._

_Next chapter will be actually moving the story forward although when said next chapter will appear is anyone's guess seeing as how I am finally going to get around to another chapter of 'Man of Misunderstandings' and I think I'll also continue 'Orpheus' but the biggest surpise of all is that I am feeling the urge to write a brief companion piece to my CSI fic 'Song for the Solo Dancer' – something I swore I'd never do…go figure…(alright already, I'll stop the blatant self-promtion)_

_To those of you who've waded through the intro: congratulations; I hope you find the chapter infinitely less painful. _

_As always, I hope you enjoy the chapter and if you feel so inclined, please review._

…_BAH HUMBUG…_

* * *

_"I appreciate the fact that this draft was done in haste, but some of  
the sentences that you are sending out in the world to do your work for  
you are loitering in taverns or asleep beside the highway."  
**-- Dr. Dwight Van de Vate, Professor of Philosophy,  
--University of Tennessee at Knoxville**_

**Absurdity, n.:  
**_A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own  
opinion.  
**-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"**_

_The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one  
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all  
progress depends on the unreasonable man.  
**-- George Bernard Shaw**_

* * *

_**  
**_

"Are you insane?!" Came the somewhat penetrating pronouncement as the doors to Lisa Cuddy's office were flung open. "You send me to do clinic duty and then, when it's just about to get interesting, you summon me back here. What next? Left foot in, left foot out?"

"I'd really rather prefer it House, if you'd refrain from 'shakin' it all about'; this is, after all, a family show. Now, I did actually summon you back for a reason…"

"That'd be a first," interjected House, albeit somewhat reluctantly, having admitted to himself on the return trip to the administrator's office that only something truly momentous could have initiated such a summons; a something that had been intimated in the oblique by Cuddy's annoyingly smug minion; when h got the chance, House would have to see if Foreman knew some people who could, 'jack up his ass…yo'. No doubt Foreman would be thrilled at the opportunity to not only prove his loyalty to House but also maintain he street cred' with his colleagues…

…and then the sun would rise in the West, House noted wryly.

Cuddy regarded her rogue physician with resigned bemusement. "House, you're well aware of the fact that I can barely stand to look at you most of the time. Not only that, but every time you open your moth you're an affront to human dignity; that being said, you are relatively competent when it comes to all things medical and in this instance it's something medical I wish to discuss, if I wanted to discuss your particular brand of aesthetics I would have insisted that you placed a bag over your head and a gag over your mouth.

"Would that be a ball-gag like the ones I saw in that catalogue you left lying on your desk."

Cuddy didn't even blink, "Actually, House, I was looking for a whip with your name on it but we can discuss that later; now, if you wouldn't mind, I called you back here to discuss something important, important to the Hospital and myself as its administrator that is, not important to your somewhat warped version of human sexuality."

House frowned, "There's nothing warped about my sexuality."

"I guess," Cuddy shrugged dubiously "as long as you keep believing that and you don't hurt anyone other than yourself it doesn't really matter. Now," she moved on with an air of finality that even House knew better than to interrupt, "we have matters to attend to."

"So your scrofulous little minion intimated to me on the way here."

"Lucien?" the woman looked momentarily concerned. "Where is he? You didn't hurt him did you?"

"Thanks for the vote of confidence Cuddy, whatever happened to _primum non nocere_?"

"You're the last person to be talking about not doing harm, I don't appear to recall any of our other medical staff using their patients as pharmacology labs."

"Would you have preferred it if I'd left them to die?"

"You just about killed them anyway…"

"…Aaaah, the operative word being 'about'…" House paused a minute to consider, "…actually, the operative word might be 'just', but no matter, I didn't kill any of them."

"That we know of," muttered Cuddy.

"Are you perhaps suggesting, Doctor Cuddy, that I somehow reanimated the patients I'd killed in order to get them out the front door without your noticing that they'd suddenly become dead? You would think, if such were the case, that their families would have noticed something when they'd got home; like, for example, the smell."

"It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. You've got Chase, Foreman and, god forbid, Cameron, breaking into houses on a regular basis, Chase pretending to represent the CDC, Foreman, who hates you, turning his back on his mentor to stay with you and Cameron, again, god forbid, standing up to the patient's parents…"At House's raised eyebrow she amended the statement, "Well okay, she stood up to one bitch of a patient's mother, but by Cameron's standards that's akin to carrying one of Hannibal's elephants over the Alps in her arms; so would it surprise me if you'd started reanimating the dead? No, not in the slightest; now, if you wouldn't mind…" suddenly Lisa Cuddy sounded inordinately weary, "sit down, shut up and listen."

Leaning back in her chair, Cuddy took a moment; this moment consisted of several 'sub-moments' one of which included surreptitiously checking her desk to ensure she had the right paperwork in front of her – while it was unlikely that person as organised as Lisa Cuddy wouldn't have the correct information in front of her stranger things had happened in some instances such stranger things consisted of malicious cripples destroying disciplinary evidence. Cuddy also took a second to quickly scan House's expression for signs of imminent explosion, theatrically-staged melodramatics or the gleam of malicious intent that bespoke his usual urge to be as difficult as possible whilst hiding behind a veneer of civilised disinterest.

As a result of the years they had worked together, Cuddy had become relatively adept at reading a man, who above all things, wanted the world to leave him the hell alone so he could brood. Where that wasn't possible, House at least wanted the world to be interesting and, unfortunately or perhaps, unsurprisingly, the mundane drudgery that governed the existence of the vast multitude left him frustrated, depressed and ever more antagonistic to the human condition as a whole; to that end, House was possibly the only person who had turned misanthropy into the meta-equivalent of big-game hunting. Cuddy smiled somewhat mirthlessly, Vogler had been the metaphoric equivalent of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, a target House could no more ignore than he could the pain in his leg and thus the billionaire became lightning rod for all of House's pent up aggression, anomie and frustration.

It was a wonder, Cuddy thought, that House wasn't a serial killer; she momentarily wondered what the victim of a serial killer, who butchered his victims with cutting remarks and savage innuendo, would look like

In the same microsecond, Cuddy's mind flickered back into the here-and-now. House was looking agitated, nothing new there, although the reason for his agitation, to wit: being recalled from the clinic was somewhat puzzling; must watch out for stray rabbit holes she murmured.

"What was that Cuddy?"

Eyes widening slightly at the realisation that she had spoken aloud, the administrator waved off the question deciding to cut straight to the heart of the matter. "House," she began, "I have a proposition for you."

"No. Well not unless it involves…" the lascivious smirk on his face was wholly predictable – and a complete sham.

"Not that sort of proposition," she countered primly; "at least not until you discover the rudimentary precepts of personal hygiene."

House looked almost wounded "I wash," he declaimed; "it's the only way to get the patients off me." His gaze turned calculating "are you suggesting, however, that if I did meet your personal hygiene requirements you might…" he let the thought trail off.

Cuddy returned the presentation of his verbal blade with an adept parry, "It would take more than a wash, House, although," she appeared to present an almost mournful mien, "rumour has it that you have, on rare occasion, scrubbed up rather presentably and have also, on even rarer occasion, presented something that has been recognisable under bright lights and manners, wit and charm; of course, I don't believe it for a minute as you're no more capable of charm than a snake is capable of taking up tap dancing."

House grinned ruefully.

"Now, if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to get to the point of why I summoned you back."

House, deciding that a measure, albeit an infinitely small measure, of seriousness was due, graced the administrator with his (relatively) undivided attention; the part of his attention that was divided was divided in the direction of the beckoning cleft that indicated the presence of Cuddy's fulsome décolletage.

Cuddy, knowing full well where House was looking briefly entertained thoughts of tearing off her blouse not out of any sense of promiscuity but simply to remove any pretence on House's part that he was staring at something other than her breasts, admittedly, Cuddy also entertained thoughts of beating him to death with the cast-iron lamp set to the right of her desk but, ever the professional, she decided to simply beat him to death with bureaucracy and handed him the letter from the lawyers.

She watched him carefully as he first quickly scanned the letter before returning to the beginning to pick it apart line-by-line, sentence-by-sentence, paragraph-by-paragraph. For all House's faults, and as aggravating as he was, the one thing that was never in doubt was the man's intelligence and Cuddy was almost able to discern his thought processes by the various twitches that crossed his face as he translated legal jargon to plain English and distinguished implication from action from intent.

"So," he began, not looking up from his reading, "you want me to take this job in order to recoup some of the money you feel I lost the hospital when you sided with me against Vogler. To some degree you're thinking that a medical mystery will pique my interest. To some degree you're thinking that, despite the somewhat direct language in the letter citing the general attitude of my peers towards me their general recognition of my skills will in some way persuade me that I am held in high regard in the profession. But most of all you're wanting me to take this job because I owe you."

Cuddy shrugged.

"Initially, I thought about appealing to your better nature but we both know I have a better chance of persuading Charlie Daniel's devil to take up the drums…" It was the incongruity of that statement that made House raise his head from the letter his expression clearly revealing a serious case of 'huh?'… "so…" Cuddy continued, "to answer your question, yes, you owe me, and yes you will do this."

"Okay."

Cuddy, having geared herself up for the mother of all battles – after all, experience tends to bred specific behavioural traits – felt herself rapidly deflate at her colleagues sudden, and wholly unexpected acquiescence.

"Just okay? No screaming? No howling? No gnashing of teeth and beating of breast? No accusations of bureaucratic bullying and administrative standover tactics? Alright, House, who's got their hand up your arse and is using you as a glove puppet?"

"Interesting image, Cuddy, I hate to think what you're using for bedtime reading these days. Anyway, to answer your question - or would that be questions…"- he added parenthetically. "… You're right – as much as it galls me to admit it – I do owe you and, while I might specialise in being a bastard, I pay my debts."

Cuddy looked suitably dubious.

"Well, okay," House conceded, "most of them…at least those not involving Wilson…or Cameron."

"Why not the other two?"

"Chase is a slimy bastard of low moral character."

Cuddy smirked, "In other words, he can see you coming from a mile away; what about Foreman?"

"He'd cap my ass, or call his homies to cap my ass or something."

"You know the scary thing, House, I almost believe you."

Time stood still. Actually, in a galaxy far, far away, Time stood angrily shaking its watch wondering what had caused it to stop working.

House stared at his boss – insofar as the curmudgeon was prepared to acknowledge anyone in such a capacity – with his first thought being that maybe, just maybe, he could make this work to his advantage; after all, how often did Cuddy apparently take him at his word. "You believe me?"

"I believe Foreman would shoot you hell, half the time 'I' want to shoot you and I don't find you to be the morally reprehensible human equivalent to rat poison so unanimously attested to by over ninety percent of the nursing staff in the latest interdepartmental survey. As to believing that you pay your debts…well, let's just say that you have one-hundred million reasons to prove me wrong or, if not wrong at least slightly less dubious than usual."


	5. Really, I trust your integrity

_OK, so I've been a little distracted of late…_

_Work has been a shit. _

_I've been creatively working on my glass foiling and even more creatively digging out a bank at home so we can put in a garden shed; this would mean we no longer have to store the garden tools in the house…thank god my hobby is powerlifting otherwise pick-axing 12m3 of dirt and rock would be even less appealing than it currently is._

_Writing-wise, I've been playing around with a few ideas for my other fics and, more importantly, desperately trying to stop myself starting yet another fic – this one Star Wars based – to go with all the other fics I don't update regularly enough. **Sigh**_

_Anyway, despite the un-proofread nature of this chapter…well OK, I looked at it several times…I am quite happy with certain aspects of the dynamic; it's also at the point where I can actually start thinking about writing the plot bit…(now THERE'S a surprise)_

_Anyway, please read and review (or something resembling such)_

* * *

_Communicate! It can't make things any worse_

_"It says he made us all to be just like him. So if we're dumb, then god is  
dumb, and maybe even a little ugly on the side."_  
**Frank Zappa**

_ If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing_  
_of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable  
grandeur of this life.  
_**Albert Camus**

* * *

It wasn't often that Lisa Cuddy admitted to surprise, it was even less often that she admitted to being surprised by House, probably because, in settings of a professional nature, she had become accustomed to picturing him in a light most venal. In fact, if the administrator was to surrender to the lure of amateur dramatics, she would variously have painted the man as a cad, bounder and moustache-waxer extraordinaire, a snake oil salesman of the first water; 'man' she would have duly proclaimed, 'thy name is eel'. Of course, Lisa Cuddy wasn't prone to fits of amateur dramatics. Lisa Cuddy was a professional. Thus, when House agreed that he did indeed owe her, and that he would honour this commitment, Cuddy had been rendered almost speechless. 

Admittedly, that didn't mean she suddenly trusted the man any further than she could throw him…uphill…into a strong wind…with a catapult.

That being said, trust is a two-way thing. Actually, in the case of House and Cuddy it would be more correct to say that lack-of-trust is a two-way thing. This is not, of course, to imply that each didn't trust the other implicitly, it was just explicitly they had a tendency to express in explicit terms their reasons for thinking that the other was trying to pull a swifty. Case in point:

"So? What do you know about this case?"

"What do you mean, what do I know about the case?"

House raised a duly jaundiced eye in Cuddy's direction, "I would have thought the question was reasonably self-explanatory, even for one so bereft of wit that they became an administrator."

"House, for once in your, soon to be short and, pitiful existence, don't be an idiot. You read the letter yourself, it makes no mention of cause, effect, symptoms dysfunction, datfunction, or, for that matter anything pertaining to the case other than the fact that the person in question is sick, they – being a cast of thousands with medical degrees - don't know why and, if things continue to progress as they are, the patient is making spectacularly good progress on the road to incipient corpse-dom."

"True enough, I was just making sure you weren't hiding something under your desk, the other shoe, for example."

"Yes of course," muttered Cuddy, "I have every reason to hide pertinent information from you when asking for a favour; a favour owed, admittedly, but a favour nonetheless. You could have said no, I wouldn't have thought any less of you."

"Not unless you hit rock bottom and started digging," noted House, "No," he continued, "I was simply ensuring that you had told me everything that you knew; I was just surprised it took less time than usual, is all."

"You doubt my integrity?"

"Not at all, I just doubt your ability to lie with a straight face, so I thought I'd ask directly. It's all those female hormone-y things you've got floating around inside of you; it reduces your ability to be sly and manipulative."

Cuddy was not impressed. Actually Cuddy appeared ready to vault her desk and strangle the bastard posing as a doctor, who was insouciantly lounging - inasmuch as one is able to insouciantly lounge in an upright position - in front of her. House, not being completely oblivious to basic survival instincts, decided to amend the previous statement to one which provided his nether regions with a degree of protection – asbestos underwear, no less.

"I don't doubt your integrity in the slightest, however, you are more likely to catch a wascally wabbit with a bunch of carrots than you are with promises of rabbit stew."

The administrator cast an appraising glance over her renegade diagnostician. House, while somewhat striking and passing handsome, was not one, with his spare frame, to be in danger of being called plump or, for that matter, worthy of being stewed. "I'd suggest, House, that you'd present a far too stringy option for cooking although there may be a future for you in violin manufacture; anyhow," then, Cuddy, her visage assuming a malicious gleam as she surveyed her colleague with all the restraint of a rabid cattle buyer, moved in for the kill, "I imagine the vast amounts of venom and bile you've spewed over the years would render your meat tough and ill-tasting. Whilst I can only speak for myself, I would consider it a truism that meat should be tender and sweet and not sent directly from the kitchens at Mordor."

House recoiled in alarm. "Cuddy! I never took you for a geek."

"Who're you calling a geek, Gameboy-addict? Anyway, I'm not dead, even I couldn't miss the swarms of noxious action figures that took over the paediatric wing."

House started to mutter something about how it was unprofessional to talk about the paediatricians in such a fashion until Cuddy's glare cut him off, instead, he shrugged, and noted "Consistency is the mark of a small mind. Anyway, if we're going to extend your Rings analogy, there's a lot to be said for considering that Vogler was Sauron undercover.

Both doctors took a moment to smile in reminiscence at Cuddy's defeat of the overpowering stench of evil that was the late, unlamented, Edward Vogler.

It was Cuddy, who broke the companionable silence. "Alright, House, if you've finished digging for non-existent clues, with your usual sideline in character assassination, why don't you take a seat," she indicated the leather chair in front of her desk, and we'll give this lawyer, Jeremiah Doom, a call and see if we can't pry something resembling information loose.

House shrugged, agreeably; admittedly, there wasn't much else he could do. As he now had his carpet back, he currently had nothing that could be used as a _juvenilia-ex-machina _in orderto manipulate – or infuriate - Cuddy into doing what he wanted; not that he actually wanted anything from Cuddy at that particular moment, although sometimes it was fun to pretend. Anyway, he had to admit, again, that Cuddy only did what he wanted in order to shut him up.

For her part, Cuddy had long ago come to the conclusion that although her diagnostician may indeed act like a spoilt child he was far too intelligent to actually fall into the traps adults usually laid for creatures of such ilk, therefore any protestation she made toward any of his given actions was, at best, token, before she, ostensibly, gave in to his demands all the while plotting some machiavellian form of bureaucratic revenge. At least it made life interesting for the both of them.

Also, in this particular instance, House admitted – in the deep dark recess of his mind where other people's opinions were carefully weighed with the attention to detail and consideration his conscious mind was unwilling (or more likely, unable) to admit they were – he was, in spite of himself, genuinely curious as to what this mysterious case, currently hiding behind a lawyer, had to offer; or, he amended, more interested in the case than he was in irritating Cuddy; if it didn't pan out he could always go chasing his mysterious room-temperature patient.

Cuddy leant forward slightly and toggled the button on her phone that opened the internal link between her and her assistant. "Lucien, would you please call the offices of that lawyer and see if he's available to talk?"

* * *

It only took a moment before Lucien's voice, with the tinny echo seemingly intrinsic to all over-hyped phone systems that do everything except what they're sold for, drifted back informing his boss that he'd get right on it. 

Fabulous, thought Lucien as he dialled the number for Doom, Petit-Morte and Avariss, I feel like I'm dialling Hell for a pizza. The phone barely had a chance to ring before being answered by someone who appeared, not only be high on life, but also further intoxicated by a fair measure of crystal-meth and helium.

"Good Afternoon!!!" Lucien could feel every single exclamation point as it leapt out of his receiver and cheerfully beat him about the head, "Welcome to Doom, Petit-Morte and Avariss, How may I HELP YOU today?"

"Good afternoon, I would like to speak to Jeremiah Doom, please."

"I'm sorry," and here, the voice sounded truly distraught , "but Mister Doom does not take calls," and once again the voice perked up to excited canary levels, "Goodbye!!!"

'Click.'

Lucien glared at his phone as if it had somehow turned into a rattlesnake while he wasn't watching. Carefully, he dialled again.

"Good Afternoon!!!!" If possible, the voice was even perkier than before. "Welcome to Doom, Petit-Morte and Avariss, How may I…"

Steeling himself, Lucien prepared for the worst, "Good afternoon, I would like to speak to Jeremiah Doom, please."

"I'm sorry…" this can't be human, thought Lucien, "but Mister Doom doesn't…"

"I'm returning Mister Doom's call…"

"I'm sorry," now, the voice was perky and suspicious, "but Mister Doom doesn't make calls. Goodbye!!!"

'Click.'

Taking a moment to recite the battle speech from Henry the Fifth to himself, Lucien picked up the receiver for the last time. As soon as the connection engaged he began, not giving the perky monstrosity at the other end a chance to bludgeon him with its inanities.

"This is the office of Princeton Plains Teaching Hospital, Mister Doom contacted us to engage our services, returning this call is to his advantage; GOODBYE!!!"

'click.'

Sometimes, thought Lucien, it was good to be alive; then the phone began to ring, the double tolling that indicated an external connection.

"Good afternoon, Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital, Office of Doctor Cuddy."

"Good afternoon," the voice was two parts sibilant, two parts constricted; if someone was planning on lynching a snake this was how Lucien imagined the end result would sound. "This is Jeremiah Doom, I wish to speak with Doctor Cuddy."

"Right away, Mister Doom, I'll connect you immediately," Lucien made to cut the connection but was halted by Doom's strangled tones.

"I take it, young man, that it was you who placed the call on behalf of Doctor Cuddy?" The question was clearly rhetorical, and carried a stench of intimated malice. Doom, being far from stupid, was well able to make the logical leap that denoted that Cuddy's assistant would place her calls and that, as it was Lucien whom had answered her phone, then it was he who was her assistant.

"Yes sir," Lucien, in turn, was nothing if not polite, despite feeling like his soul was about to be used as a dishrag, "one moment please," he continued. As he set about dialling the internal line to connect Doctor Cuddy's phone with the external line, he couldn't help but feel the elevated racing of his pulse and the fine rivulet of perspiration trickled down his, now, furrowed brow. "Doctor Cuddy?" He inquired, as the internal line was picked up,; while he knew it was unlikely that anyone other than Cuddy would pick up her phone, he was well aware that that lunatic House was in her office and therefore anything was possible; "…I have Jeremiah Doom on line one for you…yes…I'll put him through immediately.

"Connecting you to Doctor Cuddy now, Mister Doom."

"One moment, young man," drawled Doom's voice, an echo of malevolence still redolent in the simple courtesy, "I find myself in need of a new assistant, the previous owner of the position has suddenly become vacant; perhaps you are interested?"

"Don't you mean the position has become vacant, Sir?"

"Not at all, young man, not at all…"

"Through now, Mister Doom;" then, as he heard Doctor Cuddy pick up, Lucien went in search of a very stiff drink.

* * *

Cuddy's first thought, as she talked to Lucien, was that her assistant sounded seriously disturbed, in fact, where disturbed could be represented on a scale, with one equating to frolicking with kittens and ten being the equivalent of being Houses's gag writer, Lucien was rating at least an eight possibly, as high as high as a nine. It was an employment truism that quality assistants were hard to come by - and even harder to retain once they had encountered House – and thus Cuddy resolved to follow up with Lucien as to what had disturbed him so at a later date, however she was interrupted in her line of thought by the sound of a connection being made and a voice – or something that bore a vague resemblance to such - that enquired if they were speaking to Doctor Lisa Cuddy? 


End file.
